Chocolate Texas “Sheath” Cake

My apologies for falling off the posting band wagon… I am not quite sure where the last few weeks went! But, I am back with a very sweet treat for you all. This cake is an all-time family favorite. Growing up, we had this little cookbook of gathered recipes from our small day school. It was sold as a fundraiser; to this day, I will always look for cookbooks of this type when visiting a new town or rummaging flea markets and tag sales. In my opinion, you can find the very best recipes from at-home cooks in these collective cookbooks. Keep an eye out… churches, garden clubs, small day schools… they all have the best cookbooks!

I digress… I am back with this EASY gluten free “Texas Sheath Cake” for your summer gatherings. “Sheath” or “Sheet” this is up for debate here. Anywhere I have ever seen a recipe for this Texas Cake it is called “Sheet” likely because of the pan, but in my childhood cookbook it was listed simply as “Sheath Cake”. So I am going with Sheath.

So as I said, this could not be an easier recipe… I mean barely a recipe at all. The credit really all goes to my marvelous mother. She is actually the brilliant mind that came up with using the cake mix as base of the recipe. So this “recipe” is so simple. It is just mixing up Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix and adding a teaspoon of cinnamon. You could make the cake from scratch… but this is so EASY. It tastes IDENTICAL to the cake of my youth and you can’t even tell it’s gluten free! The frosting is really where it gets fancy and even that is so simple. Really, the perfect cake for a crowd!

Chocolate Texas “Sheath” Cake

Cake Ingredients:

1 Package Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix
1 Teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Frosting Ingredients:

1 Stick of butter
6 Tablespoons milk
4 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 Box confectioners sugar (sifted)
1 Teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Mix up the batter according to the directions on the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix package and adding the teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the dry mix.
Pour batter on a parchment lined jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with edges). Place in preheated oven and cook for 20 minutes.
Once the cake has been in the oven for 15 minutes make the frosting.
Bring butter, milk and cocoa powder to a rolling boil in a saucepan.
Gradually add in the sifted confectioners sugar and one teaspoon of vanilla.
Stir well to all incorporated and smooth.
Remove cake from oven once it has baked a total of 20 minutes and immediately pour the hot frosting over the hot cake.
Let cool completely and allow frosting to set up before cutting.
Serve on it’s own or with ice cream and or berries! Enjoy!